


what binds together night and day

by orphan_account



Category: The Strokes
Genre: I have no excuses, M/M, actually very angsty and very gay, alternating pov, bon appétit, in today's episode: i can't write dialogue for shit and pretend the lack of it is intentional, kinda angsty, kinda gay, kissing at a bar, nick has long hair, wooow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 09:34:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19331878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: What is there to lose after this?Why lose anything, if you can just risk it all?





	what binds together night and day

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on a much bigger fic with an actual plot that'd actually make sense for almost three months, then i got bored with it, wrote something else entirely and now i've just returned to this and am trying to make it work by piecing together the fragments i'd finished before, i know almost all of it by heart but can't fix it for the deATH of me but i can't leave this unfinished any longer cause it's driving me crazy lmao 
> 
> thank you so much for reading in advance!!!

 

Nick's fingers caress the strings just like Albert longs for them on his thighs, his stomach, his shoulders. A piece of hair slides to the middle of Nick’s forehead. It’s hanging over his eyes.

Albert’s thinking about pushing it away, but does he want that? He’s thinking about taking the brown curl between his fingers. Maybe twirling with it for a little while. Bringing it to his lips. Kissing it. Telling it his darkest secrets, the ones scraped off the bottom of his heart like tar, like old ashes and cigarette butts.

Does he even have some left, something he hasn’t yet confessed to the curve of Nick’s mouth within the kisses he plays in his imagination? When it’s dark and the barriers of his conscience blur with the desire, he gets lost in the wishful dreams. Reality bends and blends, shifts as he shivers and slides into something much deeper than what he's always known about himself.

What is this dark, navy loneliness that fills the abyss of Albert's heart every time Nick leaves?

To tell him the secrets. To tuck the strand of hair behind his ear. _Do I want that?_  he asks the tremble in his chest threatening to tear him apart, the echo of the tremble. He asks the dead, ash-filled lungs as if they know the answer.  _Do I want you? Do I love you?_  As if questioning the desire constantly would strip it of its power, its strength, as if he could convince himself he doesn’t, in fact.

Every particle of dust in the room spins to the song’s reluctant rhythm. It dances and swivels around and accumulates inside Albert's nostrils. Suffocating. He can’t breathe, but he doesn’t blame the dust.

 

 

_-_

 

_Tell me to kiss you. Tell me to lay you down on the carpet, to take you in my arms. Tell me to pretend. I won’t because I can’t, because to lie to you would be treason, but say it anyway. I’ll do anything you want._

 

 

_-_

 

 

Lennon up on the wall, pensive and crooked-nosed, Hendrix’s guitar wailing endlessly from the speakers and this ancient, tedious blues wrapped tightly around Albert‘s heart.

The room is too hot and too small. Albert doesn’t recognize half of the faces surrounding him. It’s all the fuckers from the press, anyway, so why bother with trying to recognize someone?

Julian’s at the door to the bathroom. It’s impossible to tell whether he’s blocking it or if he’s just hanging around the easiest place for future escape.

Nikolai is nowhere to be found. They stopped trying at least an hour ago. The only one who seems to be still disturbed by the fact is Fab, restless, distancing himself from every chance of a conversation with a polite smile as he pushes past the people, chin raised and apprehensive eyes skimming the room. When he sees Albert, he mouths the question, eyebrows furrowed. Albert shrugs.

Leaning against the bar across the room, Nick throws his head back and laughs. He looks pointedly into the eyes of the man talking to him – a stranger Albert already knows he despises – and takes a sip from his bottle.

He meets Albert’s eyes right after. Straight up, as if he knew exactly where to find them. The dim room seems to light up. The only reason for it are the sky-blue eyes and the humid air of an approaching storm that clings to Albert’s ribcage, the one that confirms his belief the tension won’t break until something happens. Anything.

He's been trying to catch Nick and chain him down the whole night. Now, he might actually seize his chance. 

 _Do you want to talk?_  he asks with his eyes, raises his eyebrows.

Could he have made the question any clearer?

Nick seems unfazed by the request. He chuckles as he returns Albert the same expression, only slightly exaggerated, yet his smile seems not as bright.

At least that's what Albert tries to convince himself he's seeing.

Nick points his eyes down and to the bar, swirling the beer in the bottle for a while. The man proceeds to keep talking to him, but he’d have to be blind to not notice the sudden lack of interest from Nick’s side.   

Unsmiling, his face a preview of something dangerous, he shoots Albert one last look and a smirk, excuses himself and disappears in the crowd. 

Albert frowns at his own drink and downs it in one go.

The music is too loud as it cuts his skull in half. In front of his eyes, time bends and swings and slowly any resemblance of its existence fades as well into a blur. He puts his head in his hands. In a desperate need of the final punch that’ll knock him off his feet, he begins to rub his palms over his eyes until the lights appear.

Flickering. Fireworks in the darkness. Pitch-black and deafening. It’s dark, but not enough to drown in it.

 

 -

 

 

Ever since the two other guys left the bathroom, Nick has been trying to dodge his own gaze in the mirror, pretending to wash his hands the whole time. Now, the water’s just left running. He dips his fingers into the stream and, cold and savior, presses them against his eyelids. They feel like sizzling.

He definitely has a fever. How else could he explain the heat that’s bending the corners of his vision quite different than the alcohol always does? The moment of mildly sobering out came a few minutes ago and left shortly after. There’s no desire in his body to smother the flame of consciousness, staggering to its feet, with more shots. Is it going to come after all?

Nick opens his eyes.

Someone opens the door.

He doesn’t have to catch a glance of the curly-haired mess of a head, first before knowing it’s Albert.

They meet eyes in the mirror. A shiver runs through Nick’s body and turns into a stone statue. People are always different at night, but sometimes, when the raven of night stretches his wings and the murk and shadows come spilling over the city, something transforms Albert into somebody Nick’s not sure he’s ever met.

"I was looking for you," he says, leaning against the tiled wall and raising the bottle in his hand to his lips.

There's a nonchalant smile curling his lips. It contradicts with the almost reproaching, matter-of-fact way the words had landed. He looks like he has zero intentions of leaving.

Nick shakes the water off his hands, wiping the remains into the filthy towel hanging on a knob above the sink. He leaves his face wet, although it doesn't serve its purpose anymore. It feels like another sheen of sweat on the top of the old one.

He turns around. If he's to face what he's been dying to defeat for months tonight, so be it. 

"I was waiting for you." 

 

 

-

 

 

There’s a weight to Nick’s eyes, Albert’s grown to learn, but it’s not guilt tingling up his spine when he meets them; steady and serious. They’re crystal clear, but nothing is ever less visible in them than Nick's true intentions.

_Are you frightened? Say yes, cause I’m too._

Albert glances at Nick's lips, then licks his own. He's familiar with this game already, yet he's not certain he'll ever be granted the knowledge of the rules. 

"Do you want to talk?" There’s clear evidence in his tone that it’s not the first time he’s asking, even though it's the first time this evening he's voiced it out loud.

The music echoes through the wall, dimmed and muffled. 

Albert swears there's the slightest hint of a pleased smirk tugging at the corner of Nick's mouth. He smothers it before it blossoms, though, takes a deep breath, looks at the ground, then bows his head and shakes it.

 

 

-

 

 

Soft, light brown hair falling over his forehead, curling right under his ears. He keeps tucking it away, a smooth movement of his fingers, and Albert thanks the gravity being so persistent.

Tanned arms, naked in the tank top, with moles and freckles and over them. Two cigarette burns on each upper arm. Bronzed cheekbones glistening with sweat, wide sky-blue eyes always so cautious, intense and determined, yet calmly lost in thought never to be shared with anyone.

What is it to confess? What is it to speak when there’s so much to say, yet no time nor words to say it?

Albert wants to ask Nick what he’s thinking about. Actually, he wants Nick to ask him the same question even more, though his lips begin to tremble at the mere thought of it happening. He chooses silence by Nick’s side, again and over and once again.

Still, he wants more.

To touch the bumps and dips of the reddened knuckles, trace the outline of the slim fingers as they wrap around the bottle. Around Albert’s wrists. Fingers and neck and ankles. Nick’s hands taste like mercy, Albert imagines, but it’s their punch he’s been craving even more desperately than their caress.

Bare feet pressed against the tiles and Albert’s arms useless, Nick’s arms useless if they aren't touching him. 

Albert keeps his eyes pointed ahead. He doesn’t want to talk, either.

He isn’t drunk, he tells himself. It feels like a bit of a lie. He still swears the lightheaded feeling isn’t from the alcohol. If anything, the dizziness feels like the first and true sobriety he could ever come close to.

He’s waited too long. It’s all he’s ever done.

 

-

 

 _Do you want this?_  Albert raises an eyebrow, and it’s the most considerate and oblivious thing he’s ever done, because Nick can’t breathe, it’s suffocating him, the desire, the need, the craving for reassurance and all he wants to do it lurch forward and make it here, make it now and all over him and everything he’s dreamed of.

He does. It’s enough of an answer.

 

-

 

 

Albert’s hands on Nick’s waist. Nick’s fingers tangled into his hair, sweaty on his nape. The bumps of the uneven, naked brick wall pushing into Nick’s back.

Nick knows a kiss alone is never going to satisfy him and neither is a thousand of them. He dreads the moment he’ll have to pull away with nothing but the emptiness of falling alone once again in his palms.

Albert clutches at the collar of his jacket. If Nick was to die here, in the filthy club bathroom with one broken lightbulb and a smeared, regret-tinted mirror, finally allowed to kiss Albert so feverishly and being kissed like that in return, he’d more than gladly accept such fate. At this point, it’s just them two and what is yet to come.

Albert's lips linger under Nick's ear. Then, he starts to chuckle. Breathless. It becomes the one last time, the fateful one last time Nick’s terrified of.

"What?" Nick snickers, too puzzled, too petrified, drunk on the heaven that is the sound.

Albert shakes his head, pulling away just enough to look at Nick. He stays close enough, still, to make Nick question why this little distance is even necessary.

"Nothing," the smile is bright but lop-sided, as if he knows something Nick doesn’t.

It's cruel. It's cruel that he doesn't answer, but leans in to kiss Nick’s neck and it indeed feels like a slap; the most shocking and the most pleasant one. Nick opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

Since the day he met Albert, he’s been developing excuses and conclusions always twisted a little bit wrong, to run alongside the burning need blossoming inside his chest and to, hopefully, outrun it in the end.

He could pretend that it’s not love as long as he wanted.

Albert could be just the boy who wears suits so it’d be easier to buy cigarettes, again. Who had wished to rediscover himself in New York not yet aware of the fact that the city drowns you before you even set a foot over its doorstep. The image, the fantasy so easy to get drunk on. The worst drug of them all which Albert was predestined to become addicted to.

_I’m gonna lose you. I know this. I’ve memorized it because it’s written or maybe because it’s the only way I can cope while pretending I was the one who made you find yourself._

_I was drowning and you lent me a helping hand. The same hand is now pushing me under the waves._

In the last, desperate attempt to answer and return the question, Nick climbs his palms up Albert’s back and digs his nails into Albert’s shoulders. As if the heat of Albert’s body could cover his own completely, swallow him, the way he desires to be swallowed, become his own the way he wishes to escape himself. To flee the prison of his mind, to find shelter in the weary acceptance of the bruised home he’d once called his heart.

“Don’t go,” he whispers; so quiet that maybe he could pretend Albert didn’t hear it.

Albert doesn’t respond. There’s silence even in the way his lips hover an inch above Nick’s skin. He doesn’t say  _I have to_ , doesn’t say  _I won’t_ , doesn’t say anything and that’s somehow worse than if he were to speak.

He touches Nick as if he’s fragile. The thought of it is ridiculous at first. As if he believes Nick could break into a thousand pieces and would never be able to pick himself up again. 

It’s torture to admit that he’s right. Nick is certain the kind of falling apart after Albert leaves will be completely foreign, and nothing is going to prepare him for it.

_What is there to lose after this?_

Albert shakes his head. It seems as if he has just now processed Nick’s demand, as if he hasn’t deemed any words ripe enough of pronouncing until now, and even now is too early.

He pulls his head back and looks at Nick. There’s something reassuring, like the dawn, like the sunset in his eyes, in the wrinkles around them.

Nick is sure that if he leans in to steal a kiss from the parted lips, he’ll taste the answer, bitter and sour and trembling. Just like they both are. He can hear it echoing in his mind, from the distance in the silence. It’s more Nick’s own voice than it ever could be Albert’s.  _Everything_ , it says.  _Everything, everything, everything_.

He should know by now that Albert is a gambler that relies too heavily on the first bet.

 _Why lose anything,_  says the finger that comes to trace over Nick’s lips,  _if you can just risk it all?_ He’s got his own mouth in an awe-struck smirk that Nick feels, hears thickening with a chuckle when he can’t help but sigh and let his eyelashes flutter close.

Nick’s mind spins and forms into a melted lump. Instinctively, he grips Albert’s shoulder tighter and buries his face in the crook of his neck with a sigh.

„Why would I?“ Albert whispers.

He kisses Nick‘s temple.

_Don’t stop._

He does it again, and again and again until Nick loses count. He threads a hand through Nick’s hair that has fallen over his face. 

_Traitor._

Albert pushes him away by his shoulders, takes his chin between his fingers and kisses him hard on the mouth.

_Traitor._

Nick bites a gasp in half.

It’s almost the way it should be. Everything. It feels like they’ve done this a thousand times before. It’s criminal that they haven’t.

Nick recalls the smell of Albert’s hair, the warmth of his skin through his jacket. He’s suddenly so close and Nick’s heart has never been about to burst so urgently before.

He feels himself falling into the right tracks. He places his feet into the old footprints in the well-known paths they’ve both walked together and discovers he doesn’t even need to open his eyes.

There are two ways to say  _sorry_  and Nick chooses the silent one. There are countless ways to say  _I love you_  and he wants to be able to choose them all.

Staircases. A preview of the farewell. Staircases leading up and down. Albert standing in the middle. A boy who wears suits to easily buy cigarettes, a boy whose hair smells like smoke and women’s perfume and a shampoo Nick doesn’t quite recognize. A boy who’s been leaving him ever since he's arrived, and who will continue to do so.

 

-

 

For the last time, the lightbulb flickers. The room goes dark and the silence gasps in awe.

The stars in the sky. The stars upon the ceiling, the stars in Albert’s eyes.

 _How did we come to this_? Nick asks himself as he traces the angle of Albert’s jaw in the dark. Albert’s mouth is parted.

When he leans in for a deep kiss, he discovers yet again that the entire sky hides inside like an ocean.

 

 

-

 

Perhaps Nick truly is New York City. Nick is veiny, slender forearms which Albert longs to hold onto for dear life, Nick is different cigarettes and a faded smell of aftershave he’s not used to. Nick is when dawn and sunset meet, shake hands and part and the stars collide behind it all. The music that binds together night and day. Nick is a casual trademark smirk and bracelets along his wrists and above and underneath it all, Nick truly is his long-standing desire to become addicted to something. To anything at all.

 

 

 

 


End file.
